For more than a decade, Minnesota’s Cloud Cult have moved audiences with their epic, feel-good indie music inspired by living a life of purpose and value.

Diane caught up with lead vocalist/songwriter Craig Minowa near the release of Metamorphosis, Cloud Cult’s first LP in six years. He dives deep into his life philosophies and how they power his artmaking and relationship building. A master collaborator as evidenced by his leadership of large ensembles, Minowa’s Cloud Cult will team up with the Minnesota Orchestra this week for a massive, full-bodied experience of the band’s latest work.

Diane: One of the things I love about Cloud Cult is that y'all are more than a band. Y'all are this multi-dimensional arts collective. And it just so happens, you make really epic music. I would love to hear some of your thoughts on how Cloud Cult is really this all-encompassing thing? 

Craig Minowa: Yeah, I guess, early on in the writing process, my recording space was connected to Scott West, he's one of the painters in the band. He was going to school at MCAD in Minneapolis. And so, he would oftentimes be painting there while I was doing music. And he was a musician too. So, it was just a shared creative space. And then my wife was also a painter going to MCAD. So, when I would go home and be working on music, she'd be painting. So, it just felt really natural to have that painting element happening around me when I was doing music. I'm not a super extroverted person. I'm, in fact, massively introverted. So, coercing me onto a stage helped best if I had a security blanket like my wife and best friend, at the time, painting up there with me.   

So, we just kind of elaborated on that over the years ... we tried everything for it. There was a period there when we actually had interpretive dancers on stage, where we had sheets hanging up and there were silhouettes of them dancing. And we had a period where we invited crowd members, if they wanted to paint, they could bring easels and canvases along and paint out in the crowd. And it got pretty crazy there in the early days, and we realized we needed to settle on just full-time Cloud Cult painters, Connie and Scott. What they bring to the show is such a visual element that is lacking without them – that they're telling a story alongside the musicians, and we feel naked without them.  

I think a lot of us care about protecting our livelihood from climate change. But it's rare to find non-scientists that devote their lives to it. And from day one Cloud Cult has had a heavy focus on sustainability and protecting the earth. And in a nutshell, where does that motivation come from? 

As a kid, I spent a lot of time in the woods. I had social awkwardness — hiding from the bullying and stuff. I'd flee to the top of trees and spent a lot of the summer in the woods and in the trees and really felt a camaraderie with that place. From the get-go, even before being a musician, I felt compelled to take steps to protect what can't speak for itself. And I went to college for environmental science in Minneapolis too, and St. Paul, and worked for different nonprofits like Clean Water Action and Greenpeace and different advocacy groups, Organic Consumers Association. There's a lot of work spent looking at these big businesses and pointing the finger and condemning them for their actions, which is needed and very important. We, as consumers, belittle how much power we have in supporting those companies with our purchases. But that's a whole different story.   

So, in pointing fingers at these big companies when I was working for nonprofits, it became inherent and natural that once our business started to take off, obviously, I would want to run it in the same way that I would hope that other businesses would. And in our culture, we externalize a lot of costs on the environment. And that's why different food products and consumer products can be so cheap and affordable. And whether the IRS sees it as a legitimate expense or not, taking responsibility for your actual costs and not externalizing it on the environment is just what a responsible human being should be doing. So, I don't see what we're doing as anything extraordinary. I see it as just common sense. 

Let's talk about your new record, Metamorphosis. I've had a chance to listen to it. It sounds amazing. What would you say that makes this one in particular standout in comparison to your older material? 

Well, the formulation of this record was different (than) in the past, because we’ve had such multifaceted instrumentalists onstage with brass and strings, and everything like that. It got to the point where the sky was the limit as far as what you can do in producing an album. And oftentimes, even approaching songs from the early inception phase would begin with a full, big orchestral production. And this one, from the very early stages, the intention was to try and create something where I could play the whole album, front to back, on an acoustic guitar in a cabin in the woods. And we've never had an album like that before. And it was in part trying to do something different. And also, in part, circling back to the environmental aspects that we're still trying to figure out how we're going to do this big touring machine and mitigate our impacts as much as possible. So, there was a thought, and there still is, of trying to redevelop the audience's perspective of what to expect at a Cloud Cult show where maybe it's okay to see it as a two or three-piece. 

So, in the early parts of the creation process, I was getting offers for solo shows in New York or LA, and I would just fly out myself. And with any tour, whether it's the full band or just myself, we figure out how much CO2 we are making, and it was mind-blowing to see the reduction. Just one tour, one individual band member, with all the flights and everything, creates as much CO2 as your average person creates in their everyday life all year long. So, here, my family and I, and all these band members too, are making these big decisions to try and cut back and live lives that will reduce our environmental impacts. And really our biggest impact was our tour.  

So, the approach from the get-go is to try and start recreating the model so people aren't always expecting eight people on stage – that it could be a smaller production. And if that album feels more singer-songwriter-y. If it's presented like that, then maybe more people would feel more comfortable if, all the sudden, they're going to a show and it's a three-piece. Which is more of how we would be able to handle a European tour — is we would have to be a limited band size, or the environmental impact is just too much to feel comfortable with. 

Well, I'm excited for your performance with the Minnesota Orchestra. Speaking of going big, you don't have to travel too far.  

We did shows with them about four years ago. This is the first time where the approach was, let's create a new body of work together. And so, I was working on those really stripped-back solo singer-songwriter things, and then the Orchestra came and said, "Hey, do you want to turn this into a gigantic thing?" Though, it is a really interesting dichotomy of where the intention was to simplify to an extreme degree, but yet then you're handed the biggest palette of instruments you can possibly imagine. So yeah, we feel totally blessed with it. It's just amazing to be able to go on to stage with so many talented musicians and, when you're talking to them backstage, they're not the scary uber professionals that you'd think they are. They're human beings like the rest of us with hurts and need and kindness and everything like that. 

Your music has a singer-songwriter base and is acoustic-guitar driven, very folk. I'm curious to know a little bit of your artistic process and how you start to re-imagine it with strings, horns, and with all these extra layered elements. 

Well, in the past, the arrangement process would happen alongside the creation of the song itself. So any previous Cloud Cult album, the orchestration that went along with it was really going hand-in-hand with it as the song was evolving from the beginning. And this spot, maybe because I've been feeling so broken, and feeling like so many people are going through so much change right now individually and as a society as a whole. And maybe because we launched a Patreon three years ago and I really started to get very close to a lot of our supporters and recognize what they were coming for. All of that made me feel more comfortable with the idea of intention in the lyrics and recognizing that.  

Prior to all of this, I've always wanted the intention to be positive and good, but I've never known how much weight that carried for people. And so, it became really important to me to be able to write a song that could make me feel change in myself, because I need it. Like everybody, I've got a lot of things that I need to change and work on in myself. And if I can't play a song and feel it change me then I can't expect it to have any medicinal effect out there. So, the Patreon community was a big part of supporting the infrastructure building of the songs. And I would release the songs on Patreon in a really bare bones fashion of like, here's an idea and it would just be guitar and singing in the woods oftentimes. 

And for a lot of these, it was handed over to Andy Thompson here in Minneapolis. He's an arranger, who we've worked with in the past, as well. But this is the first time where instead of saying, here's the song that's done, now arrange it for the orchestra; it's here's a song that's bare bones, just me on acoustic — what would you do with the orchestra? And really building on that relationship with him and his talents and being able to surrender and put more time into the lyric building and then offering up that big palette to somebody who's talented as Andy Thompson. It was during the pandemic, so as a band, we weren't able to workshop as much in person like with The Seeker album. We were able to get together at the Orthology studio here, and really workshop on things and take different ideas that were floating around of orchestral emulations, but work it out as a band. And with the pandemic, everybody was tied up with their growing families and their careers. And we had the technological limitations of living four to 20 hours apart, depending on the band member. So, a lot of the orchestration for this was single handedly carried by Andy Thompson. 

Your single "One Way Out of a Hole" is almost like contemplating the meaning of life. How deep can you go with it? That line "Which way do I go?" — it almost just seems like, "Which way do I go right now in my everyday life? And how can I make it meaningful? How can I be a responsible human?" Tell me more about that song.  

Well, thank you for reading into it in that way. That's how I would hope that could be listened to in that way of where, it's like I said, we're all going through so much change right now, and change is happening on an accelerated level. And we can feel really alone in the kind of inner struggles that we each have. But you stop anywhere and talk to the person that's standing next to you and recognize how much change they're going through and how many challenges they're going through. They're just carrying in there with a smile and have-a-nice-day kind of demeanor. And we're all carrying that. And as a society to think of the emotional weight that everybody's carrying with that transition. But also, the potential that we have, if we approach that as an opportunity when you're going through a transformation phase. It's also a big opportunity to change into something greater. 

And in order for that change to happen globally, as we need it to in order to really be the human-being species that we have the potential to be, we have to each look at our individual change and embrace it in that way of, like you just said, "Which way do I go?" isn't just like, "What do I do for my job? Or what's my best choice for where my child can go to school?" Those are all really important questions on which way to go. But on a fundamental level, each and every day, "What's my purpose? Why did I get to wake up today?" There's a reason that my heart is beating, and I'm still walking down the street and other people aren't. There's a reason that I'm blessed with food on my table and other people aren't. And can I blindly walk past that, or do I have to, every day, me, myself, Craig, I know I have to look at myself in the mirror every day and slap myself awake and say, "You have a blessing. You're awake again. You have today." I mean, it's cliché, but you don't know if you have tomorrow. So what are you going to do with the blessings that you have and which way do I go? And the song is really trying to look at the struggle and weight that everybody is carrying, and all sing it together, standing/leaning on each other. We need to do that right now. 

For your Patreon, you're connecting with people on a more expansive level. Can you talk about some of the exclusive content you're sharing on it for someone who's potentially interested in becoming a patron? 

Yeah, Patreon is the present and the future of how I see the music industry going. Because that really allows artists to expand what they're creating out there, and allows supporters to tune in more specifically to what they're interested in.  

So, for our Patreon, we really have tried to focus on that core group of people. The way that we've looked at it and the way that we've explained it with our Patreon members is, it's like you go to a party, and there's all the different places and all the different ways that people are hanging out. There's always that side room where there's just a small handful of people that are like, I want to talk about something huge, like, why am I here? Or my grandma died yesterday. Are you cool with me talking about that right now because I need to talk about it ... it's typically the room that is way too serious but at the same time is oftentimes dealing with some stuff that needs to be dealt with. And so it's a smaller group of people, and it's quieter but it gets really deep. And that's what we shoot for in our Patreon community. We're not gonna dilute things to try and make it bigger and appeal to a bigger audience.  

Each week is like, let's dive into a big issue whether we're talking about addiction or suicide or being a better parent — as meaty as we can get and getting to the point as quickly as we can. And then trying to open up as a Patreon community, to be able to lean on each other in a way where if we're talking about addiction, that people feel comfortable enough coming forward and knowing they're not going to get trolled by somebody in that community. That they feel like this is a tight group that feels the same way about the world as I do. And I feel comfortable coming forward and saying, I've got this going on. So there's a lot of people that really lay it out there on the table in our community. And I feel honored to be a part of people who are just trying to do some hard inner work right now. I feel like it's a really comfortable size right now. And it's worked out really well over the last few years.   

As far as specific content, it's really varied. If I have a song idea, I'll fire it off and share it right away and get feedback from people. There was a whole period where I was really struggling with the whole balance of trying to understand what divinity is in life when you're looking at the unfairness of some people, especially children that are dealt ugly, horrible things in an unfair way. And so, there was a song called “Bigger Than Me” and I was really struggling with trying to find that balance between how do I have hope and faith in something bigger than me if these horrible things are happening over here? So that opened up this big discussion where all these Patreon members are sharing their own struggles with that and their own insights in that too and waking me up to some really beautiful ideas.   

Gosh, we just had two shows that were exclusively for our Patreon members, and the whole band felt like we were hanging out with family. It's just a tight community of really shared transparency and vulnerability.

Does this go back to childhood, this relationship with spirituality and divinity and just being in touch with some sort of higher power?  

Yeah, I was raised in a really heavily practicing Lutheran family. Our previous album was called The Seeker because we really felt like our crowd was getting to be more like these people that were coming, that were like us. On any given day, when something happens, you're curious about the whys and the deeper elements of things and trying to look as deeply into things, whether you're practicing through some kind of mass religion or exploring on your own. We try to be non-exclusive in that area. But the foundations of practicing daily, some kind of spiritual self-betterment, was planted when I was a kid. And by the time I was in high school, even with the music, it just felt like it could go superficial too easily. And there's no point in us getting out on stage or writing a song if we're not being true to our inner calling. And that inner calling usually wants to explore the depths as much as possible. So that's where we end up swimming. 

Anything else you'd like to add? 

Any of us in the entertainment industry, wherever you're in it as a writer, or as a DJ, as a journalist, we all have a responsibility to try and sculpt our messaging in a way that can help things for the better. I don't think there's any debate about the fact that things can spin in not a good way pretty quickly for this human-being species, and how contagious the good and the bad is. I feel like it's so important for everybody who's listening, to understand the power that you have in any given moment. It can be overlooked so quickly because of thinking that other people have more power. But every single exchange that you have, whether it's the legitimate kindness that you have when you're thanking the clerk at a gas station, all the way to how you're treating your family when you get home from a hard day of work. Every single one of those things has a chain reaction; and when you fall apart, the things around you fall apart. And when you have the guts to dust yourself off and say, “I'm sorry I fell apart. I'm trying.” And keep on saying, “I will try again today,” the people around you will try, and then the people around them will try, and it's up to us. It's our responsibility to wake ourselves up at any given moment as much as possible to just say, “This is an opportunity to make things better.”

Cloud Cult will perform with the Minnesota Orchestra on March 31, April 1, and April 2. A portion of the show on Friday, April 1, will be broadcast live on The Current at 8 p.m.